资源丰裕、租金依赖与公共物品提供——对山西省分县数据的经验研究

Resource Abundance,Rent Dependence and Public Goods Provision:Evidence from Shanxi's county-level governments

本文研究了丰裕的资源禀赋如何影响地方政府的民生公共物品提供。财政社会学认为,资源的租金效应将使政府的自主性更强而对社会的回应性则减弱,导致治理水平低下。政治短视理论也认为,租金依赖将使政府相对忽视长期的人力资本积累和环境回报。山西的县级政府层级提供了检验这些理论的理想数据。统计分析发现,资源丰裕的地方政府对教育、环境保护、医疗社保等社会民生的财政支出相对更少,而对政府自身的行政管理支出则更多。这一分析对理解"资源诅咒"在中国的发生机制提供了重要解释。应对这一问题,需要在制度上优化资源丰裕地方的政府财政结构。

This paper investigates how natural resource endowments affect local governments' public goods provision in China.The rentier effect of natural resource,according to fiscal sociology,will lead to the local governments having more state autonomy while responding slowly to the needs of the society,thus resulting in poor governance.Moreover,due to political myopia,resource-abundant local governments tend to neglect human resource accumulation and the health of the ecosystem.Shanxi's county-level governments are excellent samples to test these theories.Statistical results show that resource-abundant local governments spend significantly less on social expenditures,including education,environmental protection,social security and medical care.Meanwhile,resource abundance is positively associated with the local governments' self-serving administrative expenditure.This study sheds light on the causal mechanism of China's 'resource curse'.To curb this problem,measures should be taken to streamline the fiscal system of local governments with abundant resource endowments.